Material girl: Designer imagines geological impact

London – The Anthropocene, a term popularised by scientist Paul Crutzen, refers to the current geological age in which human actions are affecting the earth at a sedimentary level, creating new materials. Yesenia Thibault-Picazo’s graduation project for the MA Textile Futures course at Central Saint Martins, entitled Craft in The Anthropocene, imagines what these future materials might be.

Thibault-Picazo, who describes herself as a ‘material teller’, created three vessels out of materials that will be present in the earth’s sediment thousands of years from now. Cumbrian bone marble, Pacific plastic crust – mined from the layers of plastic pollution in the ocean – and aluminium nuggets, will all be available as the new raw materials, believes the designer.

‘In these imagined futures, novel rocks will be mined in specific sites,’ says Thibault-Picazo. ‘These will be the new raw materials used by future miners and craftsmen.’

Thibault-Picazo caught our eye early this year at the Central Saint Martins Work In Progress show. The vessels made from these imagined materials are the culmination of her work, depicting humanity’s evolving relationship with nature.